Pentagon to Add Missile Interceptors to Deter North Korea

U.S. National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon said that "We will draw upon the full range of our capabilities to protect against, and to respond to, the threat posed to us and to our allies by North Korea." Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel
said the U.S. will add 14 interceptors to the 30 in its missile
defense system by fiscal 2017, sending a signal to North Korea
after the totalitarian regime threatened nuclear strikes.

The U.S. is taking several steps to bolster missile
defenses and “stay ahead of the threat” posed by Iran and
North Korea, Hagel told reporters yesterday at the Pentagon. The
announcement came as Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was
preparing to travel to Asia this weekend, with stops including
South Korea.

The ground-based system has interceptors built by Orbital
Sciences Corp. topped by hit-to-kill warheads from Raytheon Co.
Boeing Co. manages the $34 billion system that now has 26
interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air
Force Base in California. The system hasn’t successfully
intercepted a test target since December 2008.

The 14 added interceptors will be located in Alaska and
will cost $1 billion, which the Pentagon will request in its
fiscal 2014 budget, according to James Miller, under secretary
of defense for policy.

He said the interceptors won’t be deployed until the
Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency shows that a flawed warhead
has been fixed.

There’s no evidence yet that North Korea has nuclear-armed
ballistic missiles to target the U.S. or South Korea. There’s
also no public information on whether North Korea has been able
to covertly advance beyond testing to weaponizing a nuclear
device.

‘Hyperbolic’ Claims

“North Korea’s claims may be hyperbolic -- but as to the
policy of the United States, there should be no doubt: We will
draw upon the full range of our capabilities to protect against,
and to respond to, the threat posed to us and to our allies by
North Korea,” U.S. National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon
said in a March 11 speech to the Asia Society in New York.

The intelligence community’s annual global threat
assessment, presented to Congress this week by Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper, cited “North Korea’s
commitment to develop long-range missile technology that could
pose a direct threat to the United States.”

Senator James Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate
Armed Services Committee, said yesterday that adding
interceptors will provide “a much-needed measure of
protection” against North Korea.

‘Right Direction’

Hagel’s announcement “is a step in the right direction but
does not go far enough to address the threat from Iran which,
according to the Department of Defense, could test an
intercontinental ballistic missile as early as 2015,” Inhofe of
Oklahoma said.

In addition to deploying the 14 additional interceptors,
Hagel reaffirmed the U.S. pledge to deploy in Japan a second
TPY-2 missile defense radar made by Raytheon, based in Waltham,
Massachusetts. He said the administration also will prepare an
environmental impact statement that would be needed to build a
third missile defense site on the East Coast of the U.S.
Lawmakers have called for an East Coast site.

The U.S. is shifting money away from a European-based
missile interceptor whose development is still lagging to pay
for the additional U.S. based interceptors as well as to develop
an advanced warhead, Hagel said.

Together the measures will improve the performance of the
U.S.-based missile defense system and “we will be able to add
protection against missiles from Iran sooner while also
providing additional protection against the North Korean
threat,” Hagel said.

System Testing

Since the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency began testing
the U.S.-based anti-missile system in 1999, the interceptors
have hit dummy targets in eight of 16 tests.

The last successful hit against a target was in December
2008. In 2010 the system failed to hit a target in two tests
using a new, more-sophisticated warhead, one in January and the
other in December. After those failures, the agency discovered a
flaw in the guidance system of the newest Raytheon-made warhead.

A test to intercept a target is scheduled for later this
year to confirm that the guidance flaw has been remedied.